


Long Live the Groovy Sixties

by seekingferret



Category: Schooled- Gordon Korman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 20:07:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2241771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingferret/pseuds/seekingferret
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were positive aspects of the '60s, Zach realized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Long Live the Groovy Sixties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minutia_R](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/gifts).



**Hugh Winkleman**

If you thought it would just be simple, you were wrong. Capricorn Anderson returns to C Average Middle School and the Age of the Hippie lives on. Wrong. Things got a lot more complicated than that. Things always got a lot more complicated, when Cap was around. Maybe that was his fault, and maybe it wasn't, but it happened anyway. I couldn't help but feel a little resentful toward him for that. 

All I'd ever wanted, since I learned that being the one who preferred to play video games rather than run around with a ball at recess meant that the other kids singled you out for torment, was for somebody else to be the object of the sadists in our class. It turns out that when you get what you want, you don't stop wanting things. Cap had been a godsend, my salvation. He was someone who would let me call him friend. When he walked the hallways with me I didn't have to fear any secret plan to throw me up against a wall or dunk my head in the water fountain. When I walked with Zach now, the hairs on my arms stood straight up, wary to sniff out his ulterior motive. Cap had no ulterior motive. There was nothing ulterior about him at all. 

And yet... And yet Cap was now everyone's friend. Demonstrably so, since he knew the name of every single one of us. That was great, to have a school president who really cared about the people who had voted for him, but his presidential duties required so much of his time that he barely had any time to spend as my friend. Instead, it was Zach who spent more and more time with me, in the wake of Capricorn Anderson's triumphant return to C Average. 

I felt bad for the guy, I really did. He had been one of the most popular guys in school, but Cap's ascendance had swept away the old hierarchy like the Jacobins in the French Revolution. He wasn't a target for bullying the way I had been, but suddenly he was a nobody. His best friend Darryl wouldn't speak to him after the prank with the football team, his ex-girlfriend was one of Cap's biggest groupies, and I, Hugh Winkleman, was one of the only people in school who would actually be seen with him in public. 

The truth was, the guy really wasn't so bad. A little shallow, a little self-absorbed, yes, but who among us wasn't? And sure, his schemes tended to spiral out of control when he failed to really think through all the consequences, but since he'd started teaming up with me, that had happened less and less. The problem in the old days was that Zach had nobody willing to tell him that his plan was stupid. With Zach's creative mind to dream up plans and my brains to rein them in, things were going a lot smoother. 

Still, the undeniable fact was that the main glue binding our friendship was our very mixed feelings about Cap Anderson. Most of our conversations at the lunch table were laments about how inexplicable his popularity was, or how he had done something new to rile up the school into a frenzy of hippie fervor. Like the day we were sitting around complaining about the Beatles-themed Christmas party Naomi Erlanger and Lena Young were organizing. Neither of us was invited, at least not specifically. Since Cap had come on the scene, all parties hosted by Claverage kids were technically welcome to everyone, but everyone knew that was usually just a technicality. If you showed up without a formal invitation, you would quickly learn whether or not you were really welcome by seeing if everyone at the party ignored you. It didn't bother me too much that I wasn't invited to the Christmas party, since I'd never been invited to anything Lena was doing, but Zach was used to being part of the crowd. I could tell it was really bothering him. 

He was getting up a good head of steam ranting about how silly it was that all the other schools were listening to modern, cool music while our school was, yet again, trapped in the '60s. I was mostly listening. When Zach was ranting, it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Still, in a way he had a point. When he paused to take a breath, I asked if we were going to watch as the Claverage student body gradually morphed into stereotypical '60s hippies. Bell bottom pants? Beaded headbands? No bathing? Constant pot smoking? I said it without thinking about it very much, but Zach got a really intense look all of a sudden. I could see wheels were turning in his head. 

Fortunately, he had me around to turn his wild schemings into a plan that actually made sense. 

 

**Zach Powers**

How could I have been so foolish? I've always had a sense for what was cool and what wasn't, and even if Cap had brainwashed the school into acting completely uncool, I still had it. But I let myself be blind to the fact that even a weirdo like Cap could have access to cool stuff. Like pot. Of course those sixties communes all grew pot plants all over the place. Everyone knew that. And marijuana, even marijuana grown by hippie freaks, was automatically cool. 

It wasn't so easy for a middle schooler in Texas to get access to pot. There were too many goody goodies who would rat you out at the drop of a hat. If Cap had access to pot plants back at that ridiculous farm of his, I had to get to it. It could mean my entry into the cool circles at the high school, where Cap fever fortunately had not taken root yet. None of the high school kids had time for a measly eighth grader, but if that eighth grader could get them fresh pot, it would be a different story. I was starting to get really excited thinking about this, as I sat across from Hugh at the lunch table. 

He gave me a couple of suggestions when I laid out my plan, but I didn't really pay much attention because my plan was perfect. The nice thing about Hugh was that he was so loyal. He was so grateful to have a guy like me as a friend that I could pretty much ask him to do anything for me. And Hugh was the perfect guy to ask Cap about the plants for me, as Cap's first friend at C Average. He could just go up to Cap, and the freak would answer him straight off without thinking about it. 

So it was that within hours of my hatching the plan, Cap had agreed to ride out with us to what was left of Garland Farm to see if any of the cannabis plants were still there. Of course, Cap was such a square that he had no idea what we wanted the plants for. Hugh had spun this whole story about hemp bracelets and Cap had bought it, hook, line, and sinker. Apparently with only Cap and his seventy year old grandmother living on the farm, they hadn't used the cannabis plants recreationally since before Cap was born, but that didn't didn't mean that they'd gotten rid of them.

I hadn't realized just how far away Garland Farm was when I came up with the plan. It's about thirty miles from town, way out in the middle of nowhere. At first Hugh and I were stymied when we realized that none of us could drive out there, but Cap told us not to worry. Apparently his grandmother lets him drive her car sometimes as long as he's careful to pull off the road anytime he sees a police car. I was a little nervous about riding with Cap, but Hugh said that the freak's been driving since he was eight, so by now he's pretty experienced. We got to the Farm- or what was left of it- without any trouble from the cops. 

It wasn't much to look at. Mostly it was a bunch of holes in the ground with bulldozers and and excavators surrounding them. The frame of the first story of a house was off in the distance. There were piles of dirt besides each of the holes. It looked like any construction site you've ever seen, except that fortunately for us, there was no fence around it. I guess they figured Garland was so far away from civilization that there was no need to keep teenagers off the site. If there were any pot plants left, we would have no problem sneaking in and harvesting them. 

Then something really weird happened. As soon as Cap got out of the car, he started weeping. I guess he was really attached to the old dump. I kind of stood there awkwardly looking at the construction site while Hugh stood next to Cap with a tissue and tried to cheer him up. It was typical Cap, to screw up such a great opportunity by crying. Hugh and Cap talked quietly for a minute or two, and then Cap took the tissue from Hugh and cleaned himself up. 

"You're right," he said. "The past is the past, and cannot be changed." Then he led us to the former site of the gardens. Finally, I thought, we were going to score some pot. The 60s were good for something at last. 

 

Hugh Winkleman

Poor Cap. Neither of us had realized how different Garland would be already. Not that I had ever seen the place, but Cap talked about it so much, I felt like I had. I could see the spot where the plum tree must have been- now levelled out and paved as a tennis court. I can't explain it, but it was somehow devastating to watch. Like I had lost a home I had never known I had. It was even worse for Cap. As soon as he saw what had happened to Garland, he started sobbing uncontrollably. I can't imagine what it would be like to come home one day and find that the place I had called home my whole life had been demolished. Even if you're a guy like Cap who's completely in touch with his feelings, it had to come as a shock. 

I felt paralyzed for a minute as I stood next to Zach, and then suddenly, I knew exactly what I had to do. I started talking to Cap about his new home at Claverage, with all of his new friends. Me, and Zach, and Sophie, and Naomi, and Darryl, and everyone else. All the names he knew better than anyone. I told him that he hadn't given up Garland for nothing. Garland, in a way, was a stepping stone toward all the new adventures. It didn't seem to be having any effect, but I kept talking. I kept telling him what he meant to all of us. Finally he stopped crying. He dried his eye on my tissue and smiled at me. I felt like in some small way I had given back for all the good Cap had done for me.

With Cap in the lead, and Zach and me following, we walked onto the Farm. Cap gave us a sort of tour, pointing out where various things used to be. Zach acted like he wasn't interested, but I could tell that the deeper into the Farm we got, the more he was paying attention to Cap's stories. So much had happened in this place. Children and animals were born and died, trees fell, people had come and left, sharing songs and stories and labor. At last we reached the plot that had once been Garland's herb garden. To hear Cap tell it, cannabis was one of the most useful plants on the farm. Cap and his grandmother used it to make a lot of their clothing.

When we got there, most of the plants had been uprooted and thrown away already. The land had been seeded with grass seeds and covered with a layer of straw. We searched around for a while, but all Cap and I could find from the herb garden was a couple of low basil shrubs. Then we heard a shout from Zach. He'd disappeared while we'd been searching. I'd figured he was just going off to pee privately. We raced to the source of the shout. There, tucked behind a rusted plow, was a single cannabit plant, almost as tall as Cap. The construction crew must have missed it when destroying the garden. Success.

Then it came time to smoke it. I'd never made a joint before, and had assumed that Zach would be able to show us how to do it. Sure enough, he had brought rolling paper, but when it came to cutting buds off the plant and putting it in the joint, he became flustered and unsure. We decided to experiment with several different parts of the plant- leaves, flowers, stems. After a few tries, we got something that looked like a messed up version of the joints you see on television. Cap was the best of us, naturally. Zach lit it up and took the first toke.

 

**Zach Powers**

I didn't want to say anything in front of Hugh, but I'd never smoked pot before in my life. I'd never done anything illegal before in my life. I was athlete cool, not stoner cool. So in a way, this was a really big moment for me. Somehow I had chosen to spend it with Hugh Winkleman and Cap Anderson instead of with Darryl and Lena, who had been my friends for as long as I could remember. Go figure. Sometimes things don't turn out the way you'd expected they would.

I've seen enough anti-drug movies in health class to know that the first time you smoke, a lot of people end up having coughing fits. I didn't want that to happen in front of Hugh, so I was very cautious with my first inhalation. I only let a little bit of smoke into my mouth, and swirled it around to savor the sensation. It was acrid and bitter, but also earthy and ripe. I could see myself learning to like it. I passed the joint to Hugh, and then to Cap. They both started coughing as soon as they started to toke. Some people will never be cool, no matter how much help I give them. 

We got into a groove after that, passing around the joint, telling jokes to each other, laughing a lot. Maybe it was our laughter that attracted attention, because pretty soon we saw a couple of figures get out of one of the excavators and start moving toward us. Hugh noticed them first, and suggested that we should take off before they caught us. We ran back to the car and Cap drove us back home as fast as we dared. 

When we got back into town, the three of us went our separate directions, but there was something different about the way we said goodbye. It was more of a see you around town kind of goodbye, filled with the promise of future adventures. I found that I didn't mind the thought of spending more time with those two dweebs very much. There was more than one way to relive the 60s.

 

**Hugh Winkleman**

When we got back to town, I did some reading in a botanical journal about the cannabis plant. It turns out that the tall plants Cap and Rain used for making hemp clothing were not the same cultivar as the short plants preferred by smokers. I decided it was probably better if I didn't tell Zach what I had discovered. He would probably just make fun of me for spending my free time in the library.


End file.
